Gyuiyang, Guizhou

While the thoughts are still fresh in my mind, I want to write about Guizhou (Arwyn's province), specifically the capitol city where we stayed, Guiyang.  We flew into a smallish airport on Sunday evening of last week.  Our guide, Aggie and our driver for the week, Mr. Wu, picked us up after a 3 hour delay from Beijing due to heavy fogs.  Guiyang is in the center of a ring of mountains and misty fogs often settle over the city.  That day, however, the fogs had lifted and it was sunny and around 60 degrees.  As we drove into the city we saw that the area was a natural beauty.  In fact, the province boasts the largest cave and waterfall in China.

We drove into the city and it seemed very metropolitan.  Over 1.3 MILLION people live in the city with nearly 3 million in the area immediately surrounding the city.  We went to our hotel, a new Sheraton that was built as a sort of a business destination and was built to seriously appeal to Westerners.  I won't say too much about the hotel, however, they were SO kind to us the entire week.  They went out of our way to make our stay as pleasurable as possible.  The only negatives in regards to our stay in this VERY posh hotel were the smells in the bathroom.  The bathroom was very nice but smelled like cooked cabbage.    We also were in a hotel that turns off the entire heating and cooling system in moderate weather.  Outside, the weather was around 75 degrees.  The first night we were able to use our AC which was sweet, but the next day it no longer worked.  The manager was nice enough to send up  housekeeping to open our windows (a big help, not) and bring a fan.  At least he tried! 

This was the hardest leg of the trip for me.  Beijing is very metropolitan and our agency guides were with us as was the rest of the group.  Doing everything en masse made life fun and manageable in Beijing.  Going into Guiyang was like being slingshot into a foggy dream.  I found it very difficult to navigate the city.  Very few people we encountered spoke English.  I don't mean to sound like an American who expects everyone to speak English.  I do not feel that way.  But, we were expecting to have our guide with us more than she was.  The first day we were dropped at the hotel.  We were dirty, tired and hungry and was hoping our guide would help us get acquainted with the area before leaving us.  She did not.  We were completely on our own.

We did manage on the next day, after getting Arwyn, to get out and get to Wal-Mart....okay - we stopped shopping at WM years ago and I we only eat at McD's a couple of times a year.  Since being in China I have eaten McD's 3 times and shopped at Wal-Mart (a horendous experience!).  In Guiyang there is no air conditioning.  Coupled with the large number of people crowded into the shops and restaurants, I felt like I would pass out each time we went into a building.  We finally found a very posh 6 story department store near the hotel (also unbearably hot) but in the basement there was a very nice grocery store (reminded us of Whole Foods) which was VERY air conditioned.  We went there a couple of times for refuge!!!

Let's talk about the food.  In Beijing, we had a fabulous breakfast buffet.  For lunch, we went with the group and our guides ordered our food for us.  They did a great job ordering for such a large group of people.  We also had a nice buffet in Guiyang, but had a very difficult time eating outside of that.  Okay,  Noah and I had a difficult time eating.  Nathan was fine anywhere.  We ate several times for lunch in the hotel and ate dinner mostly in the room with room service.  We ventured out once to the Chinese restaurant next door which was okay but not great as we did know what to order.  On the last day we finally ate a cheap local restaurant with our guide and it was DELICIOUS.  And, the 4 of us plus our guide and driver all ate lunch for around $12.00.  This was what we were wanting the entire time, but could make her understand that we needed her help.  Her English was excellent, but there is an assumption that wanted to eat at the finer local restaurants, which were more like $30 per meal. 

Oh well.....We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel with a most delicious Turkey!  We were very impressed.  Apparently it is very fashionable to celebrate Thanksgiving here in China and the restaurant was full with double the staff.  We know that because we were fortunate to get to know the restaurant staff during the course of our stay.  But, how could we not, with Arwyn Croy - Ambassador to China - with us.  She appears to be attaching well to us and does not attempt to go to other adults, but she is more than happy to smile, wave and blow kisses at all passersby. 

The culture here is very different from the culture of Beijing and VERY different from Guangzhou, where we are now.  I won't go into details as I do not want to seem disrepectful, but it is obvious that poverty is much more extreme in Guiyang and the average person is much less educated.  This is not in reference to lack of English in the province.  This is in respect to the habits of the people on the street and more.  It was also obvious that Westerners rarely visit this city.  We gathered that by the stares of MANY of the people.  We got a few stares in Beijing, but nothing obvious and few here in Guangzhou, but no one really pays attention to us.  In Guiyang we had people stare hard at us and had children look and laugh and stare wide eyed. 

Well, not a very well written blog post, but my thoughts on Guiyang nonetheless.  I am having more difficulty putting my thoughts in order now as we near the end of the trip.  We are travel weary and ready to come home.  I'll post more as I want to share a few more things about Guiyang. 

Peace Out.  Dana.